kjp

Well, you're not going to know :). I was boring last night - downloading patches / service packs, etc. Media player 8 got replaced by 9 - a little bit of a not completely welcome surprise. It has the ability to (along with w.Bloggar), add what I'm listening to at the bottom / top of a post. It seems to work ok, but seems to be a bit stupid to me. Does anyone really care what I was listening to when I made a post? Almost certainly not. So gone are the test posts. Gone is the plugin from the media player.

Well finally, the other day (Wednesday) my furniture arrived up here from Canberra. Finally finally. For the most part of this year, it has all been down in Canberra (parent's garage): there was no need for it when I was living with my big sister & her hubby (when he was in town). However since August's sudden events and my subsequent moving out, I have been sleeping on a dodgy old mattress on the floor of my new place, using a borrowed desk to put my computer on. (The words "povo" and "refugee" were banned :). So when it all turned up on Wednesday - things have gotten a lot better: it's my room now :). It's also a lot more comfortable sleeping... of course. On the weekend (maybe), I'll put my bike together (which came up) and go for a ride - see if it still rolls along - fast.

On removal companies - the people we went with were a bit on the dodgy side when it came to keeping me informed when the stuff was to arrive - despite several calls on my part to the call centre. This stuffed things around at work a bit. I think that the key thing to do is to get the drivers number and talk to them directly. The call centres are hopeless... Grumble. But my stuff's here now - yay.

I've had a few late nights recently: I sent off my QUT assignment on Thursday. It was pushing the deadline, and it wasn't as good as it could be; but I was (and am) sick of it - just wanted to get rid of it. Anyhow, that means that my life is now a fair bit more freer.

Yup, got some more today. It's gone now. Also gone is the ability for anyone out there in internet land to comment on posts that are more than 14 days old. And if that concerns you, then either (a) provide a better suggestion contact me! or (b) go to another website.

Oh yeah, an important bit: I'm using David Raynes' mt-close script. Nice.

I've just deleted about 8 more of the same. They all have the same IP, point to the same dodgy money site in .ru. Spam gives me the irrits.

If I get much more (when I check tomorrow afternoon / night), I'll do one of the following:
* Ban some IPs. Not sure if this will work - the second batch that I just deleted all had the same IP, but this IP was different to the first batch. They'll use a different IP next time, I assume.
* Turn off comments for the post that is affected (Renting? - http://www.kjp.id.au/justification/archive/2004/07/25/renting.html) this will stop them temporarily, I assume.
* Turn off comments for posts that are older than x days. (Probably set to 14 days?). I think that there is a movable type plugin for this?

I suppose it is a downside to having a wildly popular website. har har.

Wow, I feel honoured: I've got my first batch of comment spam. It's now been deleted: as will all other future comment spam. In case you care, all of the comments were for cash loans / credit, all linking to a site with a .ru at the end.

Just got back from a funk music gig. Pretty cool music - I wasn't really into it before, but I really enjoyed the evening; a housemate was singing in it. It's always good to listen to music that you don't usually... Get a broad range of music into you.

Printing off some photos tomorrow. Or today, really. These will be stuck to the wall. I've rearranged my room - hopefully my stuff should arrive tomorrow (Monday that is). Fingers crossed. Along with everything else. The thing about grog is that if you don't have it in a while (like me), and only then you have a little, just a little effects you (I mean me). If you know that.

Got so much to do before Monday. Yikes. A stupid assignment that hasn't gone away. Although it's not stupid, just a lot of work. No one is stupid. Need to practice for band tomorrow morning. No, band is in the evening, practice will be in the morning after shops. I think. Bed.

It was pretty cool 10 minutes or so ago. We had me in Brisbane, my sister in Canberra, and my brother in law in a hotel somewhere in Canada all talking to and seeing each other with our webcams. Cool stuff really. It's so much better to be able to see someone rather than just talking to them over the phone. It's cheaper than STD rates anyway (assuming the cost of the internet connection is allready taken account of...!!).

I have a fast internet connection. 1.5Mbps / 256kbps, 20GB per month before slowing with this mob. Weee. Still ironing out the issues with the voice / video link back home... After getting the faster speed, the voice fragmentation issues remained, so I went back and got a different internet camera from ye olde electronics shoppe. I haven't fully tested the new one out yet, but it has a speaker / earpiece that connects to my sound card: a card which already has plenty on it... Some hardware issues to be sorted out here. I also have USB issues with the introduction of the modem and the webcam along with my camera, mouse and keyboard...

In other news:
I have heaps of clarinet practice to do: playing Irish Tune from County Derry makes my mouth more than a bit sore... I also have to finish the QUT assignment this weekend at the latest, which also coincides with the spring clean of the house (needed). I'm also cooking tomorrow - not sure what yet. My mobile phone company has also put me onto a plan where I have to pay a bit of money each month.... I used to be on a contract where I paid for only what I used (I don't make many mobile calls). Ohh well, it had to happen, I suppose. By coincidence last weekend I was having a bit of a look around for new mobile phones - I don't want anything fancy - just one that can automatically lock the keypad after x seconds. This would hopefully resolve my mysterious call issues that have reoccured recently. The phone should be replaced for other reasons: it sometimes turns itself off - even if it is just sitting there for no particular reason. And half the time I can read the screen...

Busy busy.

After taking this beautiful image, I've just realised I have extra sound I/O ports that I could try using. Amazing what happens when you actually look. hmmm.

As per the advice of several people, I've signed up for an ADSL connection: should make the video link to home a lot better. Iit will cost a fair bit; but it will be really fast. Weee.

I think that I'll adopt the pool that I went to today as my new pool. The main thing is that it is a lot less travelling time if coming home from work (5 minutes or so total deviation) as opposed to 10/15 mins each way to my old pool. It's also a bit cleaner and more open. Yay.

Sandgate Road taken looking north from just where the tunnel emerges in Nundah.

F8.0, shutter 5s.

There's an interesting article "Against Types" about the validity of personality profiling using Rorschach, MMPI, Myers-Briggs, etc personality tests. I kind of agree with some of it: a month or two ago I did an online version of the Myers-Briggs test several times, and got a different result each time. For all of the results given - the description of the person sounded like me. I wonder if it is just me or is it a more general thing: are people more complicated than just one box?

There's an interesting article "Miracle on Probability Street" in Scientific American about how often miracles occur and why they should be expected to occur fairly often.

Yesterday my filing cabinet arrived - an interesting interpretation of "deliver Monday or Thursday 3pm-5pm". Unpacked it yesterday, and spent most of this morning and bit of the afternoon filling it with all the pieces of paper from all of the piles of stuff that have been cluttering up my room. This is a good feeling - things in my room have a place. It's not in it's final resting place - need to rearrange my room when my bed arrives.

In the late morning, after going to vote, I went to Ellaways for the first time. It's got a pretty big range of instruments and music - but maybe not the sheet music of my standard. I got a pull through for my clarinet - finally. The old one was dirty / torn / coming to bits.

Voting for the Senate was a bit ridiculous. In Queensland there were 50 candidates, across a ballot paper that was about 1m wide. At the moment I'm not closely aligned to one party - so I voted below the line... It's all good, as they say (just took a while). We'll just have to wait for the outcome - it seems that the Libs have got a bit of a swing towards them.

In the late afternoon I drove then trained into the city to meet P from uni, who's up from Canberra: good to have coffee and catch up with him. Maybe do something similar in 2 or 3 weeks(??). Quiet night tonight - have things to do tomorrow morning.

I've finally done my tax return. Yay me. Should get a pleasant addition to my bank account in a couple of weeks.

There's a interesting article here about how in conservative parts of the U.S. the fertility rate is higher than the liberal leaning parts...

Last night, after band, I cruised around the city taking photos of the more photogenic night spots. The other day (Saturday) I got a small tripod (by small I mean that the legs are about 15 cm long). Didn't want the size or expense of "proper" tripods. Anyhow, this makes it very easy to stabilise the camera, allowing the shutter to be left open without blurring the image for low light photos. Which makes it possible to take decent images at night. Some of the shots from last night are up here. Enjoy.

(from slashdot):

There's a beast of a wind turbine (the biggest in the world) being installed: rated at 5 MW, 126 m rotor diameter. There's information about it here.

Brisbane city taken from the lookout at the top of Mount Coot-tha.

F4.8, shutter 5s.

William Jolly bridge, taken from the bikepath / walkway that goes under the Riverside Expressway.

F2.8, shutter 1s.

Victoria Bridge and the Treasury Casino, taken from the grounds in front of QPAC. The camera was in shutter priority mode - and so it chose a restrictive apperture of F8.0. Apparently it figured that it was fairly bright!

F8.0, shutter 15s.

Victoria Bridge, taken from the Goodwill bridge (footbridge)

F2.8, shutter 1s.

South Bank taken from the Goodwill bridge (footbridge).

F2.8, Shutter 1s.

Story bridge from the walkway in front of Eagle street (near the construction site) - same location as the previous image. Shutter was open for 15 seconds. With just a naked eye you couldn't see the clouds, nor the wake of the boat that had just past.

F3.2, Shutter 15s.

Story bridge from the walkway in front of Eagle street (near the construction site).

F3.2, Shutter 1s.

In aid of possible communications with people back home, I have an ICQ account. Amazing. In case you want to pay a compliment about this wonderful website (cough), my ICQ number is - 196 938 493.